The set includes four colors: Nude Pop, Love Pop, Punch Pop and Cherry Pop. Is anyone else suddenly craving soda?

So on the card, Nude looks, well, nude, Love is more a berry shade, Punch is straight up magenta and Cherry like a red. However as you will see, these are the sort of lipsticks you should absolutely swatch before buying!

Swatches in direct sunlight. Same order as before: Nude, Love, Punch and Cherry. Nude is a sheer nude, no surprises here, except it is very sheer (so sheer I pretty much don’t see it on my lips). Love, Punch and Cherry aren’t all that far apart, if you ask me. Cherry is absolutely not red, it is a reddish strong pink (raspberry?), Punch is as expected a bright magenta, and Love is a pinkish berry with some shimmer.

They apply with a glossy finish, as seen on the pic. However, that fades and afterwards I am left with an almost matte lip color. If you want glossy, you better stick to Clinique’s Chubby Sticks! The pop colors are much more stains. Punch and Cherry are particularly hard to get off again. Originally I thought the Pops might be the Clinique versions of the Estee Lauder Color Envy lipsticks, which are creamy and long lasting, but the Pops are not creamy!

Since they are supposed to be primers as well I used them without anything underneath. Usually when I want a lip color to stick I use lip primer and liner. But these were indeed fairly long wearing without all that. I got a solid six hours with eating. Even with the strongest color, Cherry I could eat without it wearing off on the inside. They fade evenly. All of this goes for the pink ones. Nude Pop is very sheer and did not survive a meal.

Although my other reason to wear a lip primer is to keep the moisture locked in (especially important under drying lipsticks like MAC mattes), and thirdly to have an even surface to apply more easily. Wearing only the Pop alone, my lips felt dry soon after the initial gloss faded. I also had some troubles with application; this might be because I only have the testers, though.

For staying purporses it might work to use a Pop as colored primer and put a not so long lasting, creamy lipstick on top.

Overall, I think these are pretty good and I will take a look at the other colors. In case I use up the tester of Cherry I might buy a full size. Outside of my testing I will wear primer underneath, though.

And last, here’s a lip swatch of Cherry Pop. This is a very pretty berry pink.

Lip swatch of Punch Pop. It applied a lot lighter than I expected, but a very pretty pink.

As always, these Clinique lipsticks are perfume free.

Take a closer look at the Pop Lipsticks if: you’re looking for an unscented stain.